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  In 2003, the Russian developer studio Nival Interactive blessed us all with a gift: the release of a game called "Silent Storm". SS, as I will mostly call it from here on out, is a turn-based tactical RPG game in which you guide a squad of soldiers through an alternate history version of world war 2. And it's loving awesome! It's release kinda fell into the gap where fans of Jagged Alliance and other great squad-based tactics games wanted something new, and Nival Interactive didn't disappoint. Well, some people would disagree, but that is a story that we'll discuss at a later point. What makes SS great, is that it's a sweet tactics game that isn't too complicated so that newbies to the genre can easily get into it. In a way, it's more centered around having fun, than making expertly drawn out battle plans as you do in Jagged Alliance. You can still play it like that, but you certainly don't have to. The other thing that's really good about it, is the Silent Storm engine that was made for this game. Not only will enemies ragdoll in hilarious ways, but the engine includes a pretty deep terrain destruction mechanic. In short, almost everything can be destroyed or shot through, as long as your weapons are up to the task.  Get out if this image doesn't speak to you  And lastly, SS has a totally not serious plot, pulpy humor and things that happen to you, lots of voice acting, sweet music, a non linear plot and mission flow, a campaign that can be played as either Allies or Axis, RPG character growth, and many more cool things that we'll discover together!  We'll follow a soldier in the late stages of world war 2. The game takes place in 1943 to be exact. Through circumstances that won't really be explained, said soldier will get assigned to a special operations unit, and takes command of his own team. Initially, the goal of that special operations unit is to counter German espionage, and do some spying and intelligence work of their own. But in time, our heroes will uncover something much more sinister! The universe of SS is set in an alternate history line, but the game never really explains anything about that, and it's honestly not that important. We have the Allies and Axis forces that we know from our history, but there aren't any words about Hitler or any other political figures of that time. To be honest, the WW2 setting in this game is very far removed from the horrific reality of our history! There is a clear reason for that, but I can't explain it without spoiling the whole game. So just lean back and roll with it.  This is going to be my usual hybrid of screenshots with a few videos. Not only to show some of the cutscenes, but also for the goodbad voice acting. I'll surely not include a video for every chat, but since this game also offers no easy way to get headshots for transcribing what gets said, I may have to improvise along the way. We'll start with the Allied campaign of the base game, and I won't do a second run with the Axis side. The main reason for that, is that it's just going to be the same missions with slight differences. And the Axis campaign is also a lot less polished than the Allied campaign. It honestly feels like an afterthought. Once we're done with that, we'll jump into the stand-alone expansion called "Silent Storm: Sentinels". I won't say much about the expansion here, but it underwent some big changes, and takes a slightly different approach to its campaign than the base game did. Lastly, there is also a third game called "Hammer&Sickle", but it's actually not a sequel. The community handles it as an unofficial sequel though, as it uses the same engine, gameplay, and is sorta set in the same alternate universe too. It's also bullshit-hard and has one of the most complicated plot maps that I've ever seen! It didn't get a lot of favorable reviews, since the developer behind it envisioned it as kind of an experiment in throwing players into a complicated and hard game, without any hand holding whatsoever. I don't own it at the moment, but I'll try to get a hold of an English copy and would then do a sorta blind run through it. This is not set in stone though, so let's just see how things go, okay? Oh, there is also some audience participation! Since the SS games have a non-linear mission flow, y'all get to vote what missions we go on. Each mission has clues about the plot for us to find, and different clues will open up different missions. While we'll eventually see all missions and clues, no playthrough of SS is going to be exactly the same like the last one. It may happen that we get a few easy missions to set us up, or we may get a hard fight as our third operation that requires me to pull out all my tricks. I just can't know in advance! I'm pretty excited to see how our campaign will shape up, but please know that I'll reserve my right to call a choice if I think it's needed. Though, in my view this would only come up if the game gives us a mission with certain plot elements too early. The plot in this game is pretty mysterious at first, and I'd like to keep the uniformed in the dark as long as possible  I also have to mention that I use a mod during the playthrough of the base game. The Skill Watchdog hack is really good because it fixes the broken skill progression, and saves you a ton of grinding! I'll say a few words about the broken part of the game and grinding eventually, but for now you only need to know that this mod will make your life in this game much easier and more enjoyable. I seriously recommend everyone to use this mod and never look back. Also, I use the Gold version of this game which includes all the patches and the expansion. Head over to GOG or Steam if you wanna have it too!   NO TALK ABOUT THAT ONE THING THAT COMES LATER IN THE GAME! None, zero, nada. Don't try to be coy, don't talk around it, don't even put it in spoiler tags. I'm serious about this! I want anyone who hasn't played this game to experience it with an unbiased mindset. I'm aware that some people who played this game may wanna talk about that thing, since it's the reason why this game has a kinda mixed reputation in the hardcore tactics community. But don't do it! Just let it go. It'll come up eventually, and then you can open the gates and post about it all you want.  Silent Storm: Sentinels 1. Opening & Test of Loyalty 2. Saving Sentinel 3. The Scientist 4. The Snitch 5. Penemunde Archives Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 18:57 on May 16, 2015 |
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Silent Storm 1. That's An Order 2. Agent's Cache 3. Squad Bios 4. Old English Manor 5. UK Military Warehouse 6. Small English Village 7. Gearing Up 8. A Small English Town 9. Secrets Part 1 10. General Bauer's Headquarters 11. German Laboratory 12. German Store 13. German Weapon Factory 14. Berger's Factory 15. Berger's Basement 16. Secrets Part 2 17. German Manor 18. Unknown Complex 19. Organization Base Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Mar 22, 2015 |
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That's An Order When you boot up the game, you'll get greeted by a small intro. It's very short and doesn't tell you anything of importance. It also has a pretty serious spoiler at the end, so I suggest to skip it if you want to stay totally uninformed! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czSQw0ia2wA  The main menu is animated, and it's pretty neat! We won't be bothering with the tutorial, because you have me to explain all that is needed. Though, I quickly want to point out that the "Custom Game" option allows to you use mini mods/scripts on your game. A few of them come with the game already, but I don't like to use em. Let's get into the campaign!  We'll be playing the Allied campaign on Normal, and I already said in the OP why I won't show the German campaign. The difficulty levels don't really make the combat harder, but have other effects. Mainly that you can't save during combat, have a much harder time finding objectives and intel, and that your guys are more likely to die. I usually play on Hard, but I kinda need the option to save when I want to during an LP. I won't cheat, pinky-promise! Another neat detail about this screen, is that the books are connected to the Allied/Axis campaign buttons. If you choose one of them, the corresponding book will flip open and some pages will fly away on the wind.  I just love silly little things like that. The next step is picking our character.  But only scrubs take a pre-made so I'll make one for us.  Gender and nationality have no effect on the game, so I'll just stick with my usual picks. I made an American sniper.  Sorry if you expected a wacky name, but I don't want to get sick of a novelty joke over the course of the Lp. Also fun fact: Cross is a classic name for my homemade sniper in Jagged Alliance 2. The two most popular player classes are the sniper or a scout. These classes just have the most raw murder power! You can beat the game with any class though, and it only comes down to what you think is fun to play. The only other thing that we can change here, are the base attributes because your skills will be derived from them and your class.  They are pretty simple to explain. STR influences your health, DEX governs movement and shooting, and INT influences your character growth and success in medical/engineering tasks. The tooltip for STR also mentions max carry weight, but that system was scrapped shortly before the game was released. 4,10,6 is a very solid sniper build. It'll give our guy great shooting skills and decent growth. He'll be sorta frail, but snipers usually aren't supposed to be in the thick of a fight. Then we can pick a voice set and a pre-made face.  The voice files include an American, a Russian, and a British accent. I went with the American because I think it's the most pleasant. Also I'm going to make my own face because gently caress pre-mades!  The face generator greets you with a baby, that gets even more weird if you put the age slider further to the left. There are a lot of comedy options in this generator, but I'm not going to use em since I'd get sick of looking at a wacky face eventually. I'm still going to show some of them real quick though. Putting the age slider all the way to the right...  ...makes you look like a ghoul.  You can also give yourself a black eye, scars or other grizzly face injuries. For some reason this slider also includes dirt and face camo.  And you can also pick from a range of goggles/shades that totally don't stick out like a sore thumb! But as said, I'm not going with any comedy options.  I think this looks normal and pleasant enough. Well, off into the game we go!  The loading screens in this game are pretty  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3MGmVc6-_0  Well, poo poo. Our squad is dead, the commander passed out, and we are just a little sniper newbie without any skills and German soldiers on our rear end! But don't worry, this is just the introduction so it won't be that hard. Especially as a sniper this is actually a walk in the park. My first action is to mash the enter button, so that the game goes into turn-based mode. As long as no enemy sees you, you can stay in real-time if you want to, but I don't want the Germans to get any fun ideas and creep up on me.  The UI in this game is pretty clear, and I don't think that I have to explain most of the buttons. Though I still want to point out the floating buttons at the lower left and right.  The left button gives you access to your character details and talents.  The talent tab looks daunting at first, and it honestly is a little tricky. I'll explain this in detail when we get our first point though, so don't worry about it for now.  Our guy also has a bio that I'll transcribe in a bonus post for those who care. We can also check our medals, but we obviously have none at this point. The right button opens our inventory.  And it's pretty bare right now. As a sniper, you start the game with a scoped Lee-Enfield Mk1. It's an okay rifle for the start of the game, but I'll get rid of it as soon as I can. Other than that, we get a little roll of tape for basic healing, and a fragmentation grenade. Understanding the difference between explosive and fragmentation grenades is kinda important. Basically, explosive grenades should be thrown right into an enemie's face, while a frag is better placed in front of their feet. There is actually more that I need to say about grenades, but now isn't really the time for it. Oh, and for the sake of completion, I can also mention that inventory actions and weapon switching don't cost any AP. You can activate a mini mod for it though, if you dig stuff like that. Well, with some of the basics out of the way, let's see what we're up against.  Our little grove is romantic and cozy, but we can't stay here forever.  There is a little guard post up the hill, and the motorcycles next to it sure look like a good way to get out of here! The cutscene showed us a few soldiers coming our way, so it's probably best if we try to be sneaky here.  Luckily, the game has a nifty stealth system that will help us with that. When you're hidden, your char will have a ghostly look to it so that you don't forget about it. Staying hidden greatly depends on your skill, and your surroundings. Being in the dark, or in shadows actually helps. Same with bushes and such. Every actor in this game has a spot value, and that is what mainly gets used to determine if they can break your stealth. Though, you can also break it yourself by firing an unsuppressed weapon, or by sprinting through an open street in broad daylight. However, classes like the sniper and scout are meant to be good at stealth, and especially the scout will get sorta broken in the late game. It's honestly not impossible to crouch-walk in front of a guard in broad daylight without being seen. It's tricky and you need to grind your skill for it, but it's possible and we'll probably see it. But this is also goes both ways, and enemies will try to sneak up on you, or hide in the corner of a room to blast you in the face when you come through the door. Let's get moving!  Or not, because there is more stuff to explain. Our guy got sight on a guard for a split second. Your soldiers will pause their movement when they spot someone, but the trees blocked the line of sight again when our guy came to a stop. LOS can be sorta finicky in this game when it comes to trees/foliage, because there is no help to check what blocks it. You just have to move around and test it. You can disable tree tops and big bushes in the graphic options, but I think it looks real ugly, and also makes it harder to guess if something will conceal you. But since our guy saw a soldier, he now knows that he's there and the red ghost figure marks that. You also get those markers if you notice noises. What's important about that? Well, you can shoot at those markers! Right now our guy has a poo poo chance to hit, but this feature is what allows you to blow a machine gun volley through a wall and into the soldiers behind it. Provided you know that they're there of course. This is a pretty powerful feature, but your detection is sorta inaccurate if it's only based on noises. Also, any shot fired at a marker will always fly at chest height, and passes over enemies that are crouched if you don't get lucky. Well, since we know where the first soldier is, let's sneak up on the fucker.  This is actually another soldier, but he needs to die too so whatever.  He'll never know what hit him  Now is also a good time to talk about the different shooting modes. You can choose snap shot, aimed shot, or careful shot. Each one costs more AP than the last, but also offers a higher chance to hit. Careful shot will actually use all of your AP, to turn them into a better chance to hit, up to an invisible cap. Only characters with very high AP will be able to do anything after a careful shot, and even then it won't be much. But when your guys rank up, they'll eventually become good enough to use aimed shots for the most part. There are also other shooting options for automatic weapons, but that will be explained later. Now, since we play as a sniper, we actually have another shooting mode available to us.  When you choose snipe mode and click on an enemy, your sniper will position himself and readies his rifle. In this mode, you can spend AP to aim, and the reached aim will carry over between turns as long as your target stays within view. There is also a cap on how much you can aim, but this mode is very powerful and I loving love it! The only downside to it, is that you need to have LOS on your target and can't use it on a marker. Your aim also won't carry over to other targets in your view, but I think that should be no surprise.  A full turn of aiming brings me to a 100%. But you know, I don't think that a single shot from the Lee-Enfield will take this guy down. So let's use another handy feature.  The numpad allows you to target different body parts!  And now his head is all over the place Heads will only pop if they receive an excessive amount of damage, but a crit for 73 damage sure does the trick. That's like twice the max damage of a regular Lee-Enfield hit. I don't really know what calculates a crit, but I'm sure that attacking out of stealth helps a whole lot! At this point I also quickly have to talk about enemy alert behavior. Usually, enemies do pick up on noises made by shots or movement, and they also react to seeing their dead pals. But the soldiers in the first level are dumb and they don't even notice that I just killed one of them. And since I love silly details, here is another one.  My expertly drawn visual aid should direct your attention to some objects near the feet of the dead guy. Those objects are his helmet and some things from his inventory. Dropped objects actually have their own physics!  Since the soldier died on an incline, his stuff will roll and tumble away until it comes to a stop in the bushes below. One the one hand that's a neat feature, but it's also somewhat annoying since your cursor turns into a clock until all objects have come to a rest. Though, I've also heard tells of players using this feature as a help in battle. For instance, imagine one of your soldiers is below a hill and needs ammo or grenades. Another soldier on said hill could then just drop some things onto the incline, and watch them tumble down to the other soldier who then picks them up. Time for more murder!  This guy gets popped like the one before, but the game prevented me from gettin a sweet kill screen. See, sometimes the game will trigger a kill-cam when it feels like it.  But since that cam has no regard for the architecture of the level, all that I could see were some trees  The next guy is up near the guard post, and I didn't even bother to snipe him.  I didn't want to abuse my snipe mode too much, and just used snap shot. But the round still deviated into his face and killed him instantly with a crit Yeah, this game has bullet deviation/spread.  This soldier has a submachine gun, and could light me up if given the chance. So more close range sniping it is.  And here we can see the first example of terrain destruction, as the bullet rips through the fence before entering his dome.  There is another guy in the house, but I can't quite target him with my cursor. Let's use the slider bar on the right and change the elevation display.  Ah, there we go. Sadly, this guy ruined the plan I had for him by being in the middle of the room. See those gas bottles in the back? I could explode them with a rifle shot, which would also set off the red barrels and then obliterates half of the house. But he's too far away to be caught in that    He also ragdolled right into the chair. Sit in peace, friend. Now all the soldiers are dead, so let's check our objectives.  When you pick up the body of the commander, your log will then tell you to carry him to the motorcycle which ends the mission. But doing that actually makes you miss another spawn that you can trigger here. It's no real issue if you miss it, but I want their weapons.  One of the motorcycles has a sidecar with a machine gun. And entering it makes three more soldiers come to the map. Stationary weapons are a thing in this game, but they honestly don't play an important role. They're mostly toys to gently caress around with.  Snipers are usually bad with burst weapons, but stationary guns give a hit chance bonus I think, so the first guy gets owned right away.  And his body flies into the bushes, because corpses have physics too and bullets will push them. This happens a lot with machine guns   On the enemy turn I get an interrupt and wound another soldier. I don't really know the exact mechanics for interrupts, but you have a stat for it and I think it gets more likely when you're hidden, or when enemies spend a lot of AP in your view. Of course you also need to have AP left to use in the enemy turn.  This is the first time that I get shot at in this mission, but the burst misses. That also wasn't a very good plan, Mr. smg man.   Most automatic weapons will only have two firing modes, burst and full-auto. Full-auto will use all your AP, but spits out a hail of bullets. Sadly, you can't spread them around, and have to hope that the deviation sends them into more than one target. Though, when the enemy clusters close enough, it's not too uncommon to hit them all. This guy was already wounded, so I just let her rip.  He pretty much dies instantly... ...and the rest of the salvo pushes his twitching body into the bushes.  God, I love this game Well, that was fun, but I'm not happy yet. I'm still mad that I didn't get to explode the house, so let's use the rest of the MG ammo to show some more terrain destruction.  This transformer will do.  Bullets will actually leave holes where they hit, and you can see sparks flying off when you shoot at metal.  Another burst makes the transformer kinda break down, and electricity sparks from the top. Our guy got some burst xp while I was doing this, but we can still do better.  Yep, there we are. The third burst makes the thing explode, and throws some corpses around. I'm happy with this outcome Not every object will have such a detailed destruction model, but I think you can see why this feature of the SS engine is still held in high regards. Well, we're done here so let's get out.  By pressing the ALT button, you can highlight loot on the floor. You really don't need to grab everything, because there is no economy in this game. It's enough to grab good weapons&ammo that your side doesn't use, and of course you want to get supply items and grenades. There is also a chest in the house, but it only has basic crap so I didn't even bother.  And here is the reason why I triggered the patrol. That gave me three German smgs, instead of only one. The MP 38 is a very solid smg for the early/mid game, and I prefer to use German smgs for the most part. I don't think you really want me to go into the deep stats here, right? Well, I could at least talk about the two mysterious ones. Familiarity is supposed to make you better when you use the same gun for a while, but it doesn't really work imo. Handling is very mysterious, and so far nobody has given an exact explanation about it. There are some theories from people who cracked the game open, but nobody really knows for sure. I also grabbed all the Mauser rifle clips, because our side doesn't supply us with that ammo. There is a way around it, but I'll explain that when it happens.  To finish the mission, we have to carry our commander to the motorcycle. Carrying people will be a sorta common mission objective, and on higher difficulties you have to carry your downed members before you leave, or they'll be lost forever.  Off we go!  It's the same load screen as before, but I think it's pretty enough to show it twice  And then we just get dumped into our new base. Oh, we're also part of a secret special OPs unit now and even became a squad leader. Just like that! The game never explains why, but I guess our heroic actions during the opening made the army recognize our talents? Yeah, let's go with that. Our log tells us that we have to explore our base now, so let's go counter clockwise through the doors.  This is our commander. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iclDEBa7Egw And he's very British! As Terrance just told us, we can pick our soldiers through him. But we'll do that later, and keep exploring for now.  Next up is the armory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2iwmrAFwJU Brian doesn't tell us anything important, but I still wanted you to hear his accent!  The armory is where you can pick equipment, and also stash the things that you bring home. It looks lovely for now, but that'll change with time.  And the last stop is the infirmary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vm-YUEGMHg  Your soldiers will mostly heal between missions on Normal, but if you still have wounds when you come back, you can just talk to Susan and she'll fix you up. Now that we have seen the base, let's pick a squad!  At first I thought about letting you lot vote on this, but then decided against it. The main reason is that there are some voice files that I really don't like to hear! And I'm also sort of a min/max type of player, so I have a squad of favorites who'll do good at what I want them to do. Now, before I pick my squad, I'm going to recruit the soldiers that I don't want and drop any good gear that they have into the armory.  Brian knows what's up! You basically have to do this, if you want your squad to be competently equipped. I need a few rifles, and all the grenades and supplies. In the olden days, you also had to get all the engineer supplies to grind your engiee. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to do poo poo after the early game. Just to put this in perspective, check out our grenade stash before my stealing.   That looks a lot better, doesn't it? The armory will give you unlimited ammo for guns that your side uses, and you also will get new supplies and weapons between missions, but enhancing your starting stash is a really good idea! Well, on to our unit.  Gator will be our soldier. Soldiers are tanky frontline dudes, that can also spec into machine guns for fire support. I'm going to spec into machine guns, because I really like to use a big shooter. But that doesn't mean that Gator will be stuck doing just that. He'll be flexible enough to go in with grenades and an smg too, and his high health means that he's normally the first to go through dangerous doors. Oh, I'm also going to transcribe the bios in the bonus post for our character bio.  Nessie will be our grenadier. And he's basically the only one who will be able to make good use of grenades. The reason for that is that grenades are sorta dumb in this game. See, how far you can throw a grenade depends on your STR and the weight of the grenade. They come in light, medium, and heavy, and everyone except Nessie and Gator will suck with anything than light grenades. You can carry a medium one as an "Oh poo poo" backup, but your range will be pitiful and your chance to hit will be too. That's an aspect of this game that I really don't like, but that's just how it is. There is a mod for grenade ranges, but it goes too far imo. Nessie can also get skills to throw farther and faster, so he's going to do just that. Grenadiers can also spec into rocket launchers, but that's a waste imo, and I'll explain why when we get there. The game wants you to use your grenadiers with smgs and have them run at the enemy 24/7, but I'll make Nessie a bit more flexible.  L.A. is going to be our engineer. That class has a sorta bad rep in the community, since they're not very good at combat, and medics can also do lock picking and mine removal. I still like engiees though, because they have access to special explosives. Their tree also has a certain skill that I'm not going to talk about yet, but I want to have it. Other than that, L.A. will maybe not become a front line trooper, but still decent enough to support from the back. Also I bet on her to level at least one house over the course of the LP.  Elf will become our scout, and she'll eventually be the queen of murder. I'm not kidding, scouts get drat good in the long run. They become very hard to spot once they have some stealth skill and talents, can throw knives, slit throats, or pop heads with a suppressed weapon. Good times all around! The other task that they have is to spot for the rest of our team, and make sure that no enemy sneakers get the jump on us. Scouts have a few different weapon options that they can spec in, but I usually stick to throwing and maybe a little melee. Their base shooting skill is usually good enough to handle suppressed guns alongside that.  And lastly, we have Abala as our medic. Medics also don't get a lot of love, because they sacrifice combat power for utilities. However, they are better soldiers than engiees, and their healing skills will come in handy. When you have to fix a critical wound while under fire, for example. And some people also don't seem to realize, that their sniper growth is good enough to use snipe mode, and become decent marksmen with a bit of care. The designers hosed medics a little bit though, because they can get a lot of melee talents, but aren't actually a class that gets into melee often. At least they also can grab some shooting talents, so they're not totally boned. And with our squad picked, let's head over to the armory and equip them.  Cross stole a scoped Mosin rifle from one of the other snipers, and compliments it with a TT pistol. The Mosin is much better than the Lee-Enfield! More damage, less AP to fire, and the round also has higher penetration. I then gave him a light grenade for emergencies, and some Haemostatic powder. Powder can fix a light bleeding, but won't help out with a serious condition.  Gator runs with the Lewis MK1 lmg that he comes with. It's the only lmg that we currently have, and while it's not very good, it'll do for now. He also got an smg and grenades for close range work. A nice little detail about the equip screen, is that things will actually show up on your dudes. Like, you'll see grenades on their belt/rigging, and magazines will be put into pouches and such. I think that's super cool!  Nessie gets the basic rifle+smg setup to be prepared for whatever. This setup is usually what most walkthroughs will suggest for almost any class, and they're basically right. A lot of people put too much faith into automatic weapons, only to find out that you have horrid chances to hit beyond close quarter ranges. I also gave him a bunch of grenades, and if you think nine grenades sounds excessive, then you're wrong. You'd be surprised how fast you can burn through them! Also, see that grey disk at the top left of his inventory? That's an ammo drum for the Lewis lmg, and since it uses the same ammo as the Lee-Enfield, Nessie can just reload from that. This little quirk in the engine saves you a bit of space, especially when you get weapons that can be fed from bigger drums.  L.A. also runs with the basic setup, and got a selection of engineer items on top of it. Two basic lock picks and a mine probe are good for now, and she also has three sticks of dynamite. That's the first kind of engiee explosive, and works like a grenade without the harsh weight penalties. You also need a certain engineer skill to even use them, and their effectiveness depends on your skill as well. The later engiee explosives will be quite destructive, and I can't wait to get my hands on them.  Elf runs with a Mauser pistol and a Sten smg for now, but I'll replace the pistol as soon as I can find a certain small rifle. Other than that, she gets a range of different things to prepare her for any situation that she may face. I also think that it's a good idea to give your scouts at least one medium grenade, because they're liable to get into sticky situations. Blowing up a few dudes before you bail always gets a laugh.  Abala got the scoped Lee-Enfield, and a Grease Gun. The Grease Gun uses .45 cal rounds, and has the highest damage of all the smgs right now, but also the worst range. I honestly only gave him that because I forgot to steal another Sten. He also has a few backup grenades, and a forceps to heal critical wounds. That's basically the best we can currently do, so let's head out.  Some people get a little stuck at this point, because your log still tells you to get your orders from your commander. But you actually have to click the leave button to enter the world map.  Yep, there is a world map For now, we can only access North Britain, but we'll see other places in the future. That little flag icon also gets us back to base. If you check your log at this point, you'll see some information about the first mission that the game randomly picked for you from a small selection of starter missions.  Your log will always have briefings, and also reports about what you found during your missions. This is handy to keep up with the different clues that you'll find. Also, since that text goes a little beyond the page, I'll type it out for you. ---------- Att: Special Operations - SE2 - Squad leader Priority - 1 Apparently, German Intelligence has recovered from the setback we dealt their network last month. In the past week, two senior researchers have disappeared and a fuel storage depot was attacked. The depot was totally destroyed, and none of the guards were spared. Yesterday, the body of one of our couriers was found. The highly sensitive documents he was carrying were gone. Retrieving those documents is an urgent priority. As a starting point, we have some intelligence on a German drop-off site that has been used in the past. If we're lucky, the package may still be there waiting to be picked up. In the meanwhile, I'll try to determine how the Germans knew the courier's precise route and schedule. Trust no one. We most likely have a traitor among us. Lieutenant Randy Scott British Intelligence ---------- Usual spy stuff, I'd say Well, after clicking on North Britain, we get to the region map.  The plane icon gets us back home, while the world globe at the top left gets us back to the world map. You can freely move about this map, while missions will be glowing question marks. When you move around on the map, your icon will change once you stop.  If you click on it, your squad will enter a campsite where they chill out. This has no real purpose, but back in the days we used to do most of our grinding there. There are also random encounters!  Your map icon has kind of a range of influence, and if a part of the map can spawn randoms, it'll do so if your range overlaps with that part. So every encounter is avoidable if you wish it. Encounters will mostly be little fights for xp and some crap loot, but there are also several special/secret encounters. Of course, I'm going go to get them all eventually. I think this is also where the alternate history thing comes into play, because my history class would have told me about tons of German patrols that roamed through the English countryside in 1943. Well, that's all that I have to explain for now, so let's ogle at the mission that we'll do next time! 
Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Oct 12, 2014 |
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Oct 12, 2014 18:18
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This game is one of the most satisfying destruction-simulators, grenades, rockets and explosives, oh my!
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Oct 12, 2014 18:40
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I absolutely adore this game, mostly for the amazingly bad voice acting. I've only played the Axis campaign for the wide variety of colorful psychopaths you can recruit there, so this should be fun.
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Oct 12, 2014 18:42
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This is the best squad tactics game since JA2 and I love almost every bit of it. Requesting maximum explosives usage. fake edit: Erwin the German posted:I absolutely adore this game, mostly for the amazingly bad voice acting. I've only played the Axis campaign for the wide variety of colorful psychopaths you can recruit there, so this should be fun.
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Oct 12, 2014 18:43
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Silent Storms are awesome games to start and utter crap to finish. I usually go with a custom difficulty with all weapon damage cranked to the max and everyone's health at minimum.
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Oct 12, 2014 18:48
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I could never get this game to run, which was a huge disappointment. Looking forward to seeing it in play!
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Oct 12, 2014 18:48
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quote:Heeeeeeeellllllllllooooooooooooo, nurse! I'm looking forward to this game. People are apparently really big fans of it, so it's nice to see what's up. And don't worry about not letting goons give you a terrible squad. From what I hear getting this game to run can be a challenge so anything that makes your life easier is for the best.
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Oct 12, 2014 19:31
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SSNeoman posted:And don't worry about not letting goons give you a terrible squad. From what I hear getting this game to run can be a challenge so anything that makes your life easier is for the best.
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Oct 12, 2014 19:34
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Koorisch posted:This game is one of the most satisfying destruction-simulators, grenades, rockets and explosives, oh my! anilEhilated posted:Requesting maximum explosives usage. anilEhilated posted:I was just complaining about this in the sandcastle. The Axis roster is a thing of beauty. SelenicMartian posted:Silent Storms are awesome games to start and utter crap to finish. Also, if you like difficult games you should get a hold of Hammer&Sickle. I've heard tells that getting one-shot by rifles is basically it's deal Night10194 posted:I could never get this game to run, which was a huge disappointment. Looking forward to seeing it in play! anilEhilated posted:It pretty much depends on your restrictions. This game is very breakable. 
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Oct 12, 2014 19:36
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I love this game, but I hadn't discovered it until recently. So I haven't played it that much. Have a good war!
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Oct 12, 2014 19:38
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gently caress, you're gonna make me replay this and play the expansion I didn't get to last time. I can already see that the little mod file will fix like half the problems I have with this game.
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Oct 12, 2014 20:27
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anilEhilated posted:I was just complaining about this in the sandcastle. The Axis roster is a thing of beauty. The horror.
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Oct 12, 2014 22:13
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anilEhilated posted:I was just complaining about this in the sandcastle. The Axis roster is a thing of beauty. All Olli all day. Revenant Threshold posted:When Tin Tim said he wasn't going to pick some soldiers because of the woeful voice acting, my first thought was "At least he's not going to go with Elf, then!" Elf is the best and I will hear no other opinions. e: people who use Skill Watchdog, how did you open the .l file for the mod and add it to the game directory? Bacarruda fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Oct 12, 2014 |
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Oct 12, 2014 22:44
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Bacarruda posted:Elf is the best and I will hear no other opinions. "Here's another git in search of death." stabs the poo poo out of some poor guard "This warms me blood." But different folks, different strokes! Luckily, you get a good roster to chose from, so it's unlikely that you'll not find a few soldiers that you dig. My comment was actually not aimed at the quallity of the VA, but at not liking the sound of certain voices or the accents that they have. It's true that the VA is very much goodbad, but I think it swings on the funny side of the tracks for the most part. Especially the cartoonish battle lines for the random troops keep me entertained, no matter how often I hear "Argh, I am dying" in a stereotypical German accent. Bacarruda posted:e: people who use Skill Watchdog, how did you pen the .l file for the mod and add it to the game directory? Pierzak posted:I can already see that the little mod file will fix like half the problems I have with this game. Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Oct 12, 2014 |
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Oct 12, 2014 23:31
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I've heard some interesting things about this series, so I'm looking forward to seeing this game in action.
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Oct 13, 2014 00:08
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Ah, I love this game. All-time classic. I see you picked out all the same Allied squad members I always use. I got Silent Storm and Sentinels off of Steam, and they work fine on Windows 7. red mammoth fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 00:43
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red mammoth posted:Ah, I love this game. All-time classic. I see you picked out all the same Allied squad members I always use. Did you do anything to change the resolution? Or did you not bother with trying to get it to display widescreen? Because in my S2 the option for native 1920x1080 doesn't show up at all.
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Oct 13, 2014 20:59
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red mammoth posted:Ah, I love this game. All-time classic. I see you picked out all the same Allied squad members I always use. Nuramor posted:Did you do anything to change the resolution? Or did you not bother with trying to get it to display widescreen? Because in my S2 the option for native 1920x1080 doesn't show up at all. Also, update in a little bit. Just need to spell check.
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Oct 13, 2014 22:53
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Agent's Cache  Let's do our first proper mission.   We enter a little forest map, with a road next to us.  That is probably where we can find those documents. I mean, that chest looks mighty interesting! Now, while it's clear that we should take a look at the truck, the terrain here is treacherous and it's very likely that there's a patrol in the woods. So let's form a little plan, to make sure that we don't stumble into anything.  Abala will crawl out to the street, and hopefully get a clean view on the truck, while Nessie and L.A will advance through the bushes next to the road. Gator will push through the middle, and goes prone in the open. He'll have a good field of fire on the truck, or the forest to his right from there. He doesn't really need LOS, because your soldiers can fire on enemies that your other squad members can see. And a good volley of MG fire will usually score a few hits. Elf and Cross will flank around the right, and recon the woods. There is a lot of open ground between the tree patches, and they have the best chance to stay hidden while moving through there. This is just a beginner mission, so it won't be too hard, but I think it pays to approach every mission as best as you can. Trains you skills as a player, imo. While our squad creeps forward, I spot a little thing that I can explain. You know how I love them details!  If you flex your eyes, you can see that Abala's outline looks a little weird here. That's because he currently climbs over a tree branch. Pathfinding in dense woods can be a bit finicky, and sometimes your soldiers will not be able to move through between two trees. In those case, they'll just climb through the branches. That's neat, but it also can surprise you, because the game sometimes doesn't take the AP costs into account when showing you how much it'll cost to move where you want to go. So it's possible to get stranded on a branch without enough AP to move on for the rest of the turn. It's just a minor thing, but can gently caress you if you decide to climb over a fence in the middle of a fight. In the woods, Cross makes first contact.  And you can already see the power of stealth here. That guy should probably spot me! But hey, the early enemies are chumps, and stealth in this game is more balanced around having fun, instead of being realistic in any way It's a lone guy, so let's see if we can get Elf over there to murk him without making noises.  She isn't very good with throwing knives right now, but throwing also only costs her 9Ap, so it can still work if I can get her close enough.  Except that he actually isn't alone at all! We're very far away from being able to silently wipe that group in a single turn at this point in the game, so there is no other choice than to go loud on them. Though, this also serves as a lesson in proper recon work. Always make sure that lone guards actually are alone, or you'll not get away with murking them. Anyway, let's check where everyone is before the action starts.  Abala aims at the soldier next to the chest, while Nessie and L.A stand in the woods and will rush the truck with explosives.  Cross set up in some bushes, and aims at the guard in the back. I'd love to have him go prone for the accuracy, but the terrain is uneven and fucks with his LOS. Gator lurks behind him, and Elf sneaked up as far as the trees allowed her to.  Cross opens by plugging a guard in the chest...   ...and Gator finishes him off.  Well, you didn't hit any of the other guards, and the terrain made you put at least a third of that volley into the ground. So don't get cocky, mate  Let's see what Elf can do about those guards.  As I said last time, bigger grenades are hard to use for anyone who isn't a grenadier. Scouts have good throwing growth, so Elf can handle them somewhat proficient later, but now isn't the time. A frag would probably finish them both, but at 2% it just won't happen.  Okay, that light grenade looks a bit more promising. The way grenade CTH works is pretty simple. If you gently caress up, the grenade usually flies past your target, or just steers of course like crazy. But it can still land close enough to wound your target, so trying throws at 30% or higher is usually worth it. And while it's technically possible to hurt yourself with a fumbled throw, it's very unlikely. Though, I've seen grenades bounce back from a wall, or explode in the tree above my head, so take that with a grain of salt.   drat  Not only did Elf gently caress that up, the soldier also got a reaction shot and nicked her with a critical wound. Critical wounds will have different effects depending on what body part suffers them. Elf took a lv 3 wound to her arm, and will have reduced CTH for a turn. That's not really a problem, but bigger wounds will stick around longer, and are also way harder to treat. I never bothered to look into what the wound level actually does, but I guess it checks against your medic skill. Well, that CTH penalty fucks up her shooting chances right now, so let's give the grenade another try.  It's not on target, but at least wounds the guy. This example also shows the weakness of explosive grenades. You really have to hit the enemy dead on for them to be effective. A frag would have done a much better job, but that's what we got for now.  Elf also didn't have enough AP left to get back into the woods, and will probably get shot in the butt soon! Let's hope that the attack on the street goes a bit better.  Nope! Well, at least Cross gives some positive reinforcement  Come on, Nessie. Show the good folks at home that we're not running with a clown squad here!  Frag ftw  L.A can't really engage the other guy, so I have her rush up to burst him on the next turn. I end my turn, and hope that Elf won't get hit too hard   The first soldier misses... ...and the other one only manages to nick her again.  Elf also has a cool attitude towards getting shot, so everything is fine On the road, something special happens.  A German officer comes around the truck, but does not manage to spot L.A. I think being in the shadow of the truck made the difference here. This guy is also interesting because he has an objective marker over his head. Remember how the briefing said that we were here for documents? Well, turns out we're actually not, and our new goal is to capture that guy so that he can be questioned. There are a few missions in this game that don't really play out like the briefing said. I like to think that it's a statement about how reliable military intelligence is, but it could also be translation errors. But hey, this game isn't serious about its plot anyway, so let's not dwell on that. Time to clean up!  Gator keeps firing, but doesn't manage to get a kill, and it's mainly the fault of his crappy gun. But if you squint your eyes, you can also see that he landed a lot of shots in the ground ahead of him, since the terrain is uneven here. Oh well, Cross follows with a headshot for 92 damage anyway. Told you that the Mosin is much better! That leaves Elf to finish the guy she wounded during her last turn.  I would really like to rush up and stab him in the head, but Elf just isn't ready for something like that right now. It would be a 50/50 shot to get the kill, or get her killed on the next turn. Since I don't like those odds, I decide to play it safe.   Turns out, this fight could also have gone way different, because that guy had a bunch of grenades! I guess he didn't use them since we're still dealing with the baby AI. With that said though, later enemies will whip out grenades if you let them get close enough. Though, it won't happen too often because the AI will usually favor the better hit chance with their gun. On the street, Abala manages to hit on the second try.  His bullet even smashes the chest, and rips through the soldier before it lands in a tree behind him. The Enfield probably heard me talking poo poo about it Shooting a chest will not damage its contents, but exploding it sure will! Though, it may depend on how strong the explosion is, but I never had the will to test it. Nessie then runs up and finishes the guy.  This actually was a small experiment, because I wanted to see if items on the ground can get destroyed. As far as I can tell, they can't. Now let's get to work on capturing that officer.  A lot of people will get stumped here, because your log clearly says that you should knock your target unconscious. There are blunt weapons in the game, and they'll instantly knock people out if you crit them in the head while being hidden from them. But you actually don't have to bother with that, and can just kill them like any other enemy! Explode them, or put a whole volley of MG fire into their belly if you like. The outcome will be the same, and they'll just pass out. I believe pre-release builds of the game didn't handle it like that, but it would also be a huge hassle to club somebody in the middle of combat, so I'm cool with this. Though, I never checked what happens when you try to gib the head of a mission target. I'll try to keep that in mind and will investigate if I get the chance. L.A will be the one who "stuns" him.  Don't worry, pal. We'll carry you   I'm sure he's fine! I would have loved to gif this, but the game triggered the kill cam again, and that bloated the gif something fierce  We're done here, so let's loot and get ready to leave.  We got two MP 40 smgs, and they are very solid weapons that you can honestly use all the way through the game. There are a lot of different smgs to pick from, but the stat differences are mostly very minor tbh. We also got an MP 40-2, which has the same stats but double the ammo since it has a spare clip cobbled to it. The grenades amount to three light explosives grenades, and two of the iconic M-24, or "Potato masher", frag grenades. The light grenades are worse than our own, but free grenades are still neat. The M-24s are pretty good, and I'll stash them for later. And here are the contents of that chest.  Aside from some minor medical items, we get two light German frag mines. The game has a typo here, because the mine is actually called "S.Mi.Z.35", instead of Smiz-35. The name is made from the type of the mine("S.Mi" for shrapnel mine), and the type of fuse("Z.35" for the fuse type). Just a little fact for the WW2 enthusiasts But using mines isn't really worth it imo. I'm sure there are people who managed to get enemies to walk over a mine, but I personally just don't think that it's worth the trouble. We also get another item, whose name I rather not transcribe.  The effect of these pills is pretty simple. Pop them, and all critical effects will not count for two turns, and then you get hit for 15% of your max health when they wear off. They can surely save your rear end in a pinch, and I'm going to carry them once I have enough for my whole unit. Though, a lot of medical items work like this, only more potent while also doing more damage when they wear off, so the medical items in this game are actually pretty shallow. And honestly, the negative effects that some of them have make them almost useless imo. And lastly, the officer also had something new for us.  A Luger! It's a pretty good pistol, and there are honestly not many that outclass it. A little weird detail in the game is, that it lists 9mm guns as using .38 Parabellum. That round doesn't even exist, as far as I know  In almost every mission, you can also find little books like this. They'll add tutorial type hints about the game to your log book. No idea why the developers felt the need to make you hunt for them though. E: Thanks to Stelas, I now know that collecting these hints gives you a bit of xp, and the rewards will increase the further you are into the game. So, to my surprise, picking these up is a good idea after all. We're almost ready to leave, but there are a few more things to take care of.  Like spending our first talent point!  Your stat screen usually shows which skills have risen recently, and you can also see how far you are on the way to the next point. That's super handy for min-max retards like me! And this screen would look quite different without the Watchdog. Cross wouldn't have gained any burst, medical, evasion, or throwing skill on his own, and you'd need to grind for it.  I said in the last update that this talent tab looks daunting, and it really is a little tricky. A first time player will probably not know what talents make sense, and wastes points in the long run. See, the most important part about the talents is that arrows are prerequisites. No matter how far you are into the game, you can't pick a talent without getting the prior talents that are connected to it. This honestly makes character building not that fun, because there are certain talents that are really good, but need crappy talents to get you there. The sniper talents can be roughly grouped into three trees. The big one on the left has a lot of general combat talents, and eventually brings you to Master Sniper. This gives you a higher chance to crit, and also higher crit numbers. Sounds good, right? Well, the tree that's like in the right middle will lead to "Always critical", which makes Master Sniper pretty much obsolete! There is a lot of myth and miss information about that skill, but I'll talk about it when we unlock it. The tree all the way on the right mostly deals with sight skills, and it's really good to have! A lot of players beeline for Always Critical, but I like to get the sight tree first, to not break the game too hard. You also won't get nearly enough points to grab most of the talents, so you kinda need to know where you want your build to end up from the start. This whole talent business could have been designed a lot better, but it's what we got. As I said earlier, I'll go through the sight tree first, and then will go for the Always Critical tree. Snipers are already good enough without having the crit skill ASAP.  The first skill I pick is "Shoot through cover", and it's only mildly useful. Snipers will mostly use snipe mode, and rarely have to worry about enemies in partial cover. It's honestly just a prerequisite for better things. Okay, before we finally leave, let me tell you about one of my pro-tips.  Before I leave a mission, I always have my squad run back and forth between two points a few times. This will get each of them a point or two in spotting, because they literally spot each other while doing this. Sounds weird but it totally works! I usually also hide and unhide after each run, and train a bit of hiding that way too. The watchdog will make sure that your skills meet the baseline, but you still need to work a bit if you want to be excellent. How far you can grind your skills is governed by two caps. The first and biggest is your level cap, but each mission also imposes a second cap on you, and limits how many points you can gain during a single mission. So there is no use in doing my trick for an hour. If you are a grind-hound like me, check the stat progress in your skill tab to see if your actions still have an effect, or if you already hit the cap. And last but not least, I checked if the truck can be exploded.  Yup  Now let's finally get our totally not mangled bounty back home!  ------ Att: Special Operations - SE2 Re: Interrogation of Oberleutnant Heiner Kaufman Your capture of Oberleutnant Kaufman may have solved our intelligence leak. During his interrogation, Heiner Kaufman stated that his orders came from Major Alfred Newhouse. We've had Newhouse under sporadic surveillance for some time. However, everything we've been able to gather so far, has been circumstantial, or somewhat suspicious, at best. Now, we have concrete confirmation that Major Newhouse is indeed working for the Germans. Lieutenant Randy Scott British Intelligence ------ Huh. Even if our mission played out differently than we thought, we ended up getting more than we hoped for. Stomping out a mole in our own ranks will surely help our side! Also, this mission only gave us one clue, so there is nothing to vote for you yet. That's one of the things that I couldn't anticipate, because you usually get two clues in the early game. But if the game wants to give us the Newhouse mission right away, then I can't help it. This mission will also be at least somewhat challenging for our squad, since you normally get it with a bit more experience under your belt. But no matter, we'll deal with it and hopefully get some voting options soon enough. Also, question for y'all. Are the one page entries clear enough to read, or should I always type them out? Back at the base, we have a few new things in the armory.  It's mostly new weapons, so let me update our gear accordingly.  Cross grabs the Luger, and it will come in handy very soon! There are no new sniper rifles, but the Mosin will stay sweet for a good while anyway.  Gator took one of the MP 40s, and dropped the Lewis for the Browning M1922. The B.A.R, as it's better known as, isn't really a lmg, but rather an automatic rifle. It couples the automatic fire modes with normal single shot options. You can't aim it as well as a rifle, but it's good enough. It also has a much smaller magazine, and a smaller burst size, but makes up for that with much higher damage and better penetration.  Nessie grabbed the other MP 40, and replaced the grenades that he used.  L.A replaced her Enfield with a Mosin, and also grabbed a bit more dynamite. We actually have access to a new type of engiee explosive, but L.A isn't skilled enough to use it yet.  Elf snagged the MP 40-2, and also got rid of the pistol. She now uses the M-1 carbine, and that thing is going to work really well on her. You can aim it like a big rifle, but it obviously won't reach the same accuracy levels. However, since Elf is often closer to the enemy anyway, that won't really matter. It also has pretty low AP costs for a rifle, and she'll eventually be able to bang out like four aimed shots per turn. I love it! She also got the crappy German grenades, because I want to use those while we're still in the early game, and save our own light grenades for later. I also thought about giving her a Grease Gun instead of the MP 40-2, but the increased damage doesn't matter that much, if you take into account that Elf has other close range options, and can also shoot the MP 40-2 a whole lot before she needs to reload.  Abala only switched the Grease Gun for a Sten, because I favor range over damage on soldiers that aren't clearly built for close range fights.  Well, next time we'll walk into a fortified military camp and accuse the commander of being a dirty traitor. I wonder how that'll play out for us
Tin Tim fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Nov 17, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 23:42
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One of my favorite games of all time. Rarely have I seen a game with moments as satisfying as kicking in a door and full-auto emptying a BAR clip at a German soldier who then hilariously ragdolls out the window behind him and falls three stories to the ground, or taking out half a building with a well-placed heavy grenade And holy poo poo, this game is on Steam? Goodbye 
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Oct 14, 2014 00:28
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Man, I love this game but I'm so bad at it. It's good to watch someone more competent than me play through it I could never make it through a few of the later missions without cheating. Also your preferred Allied lineup is almost the same as mine! I used the scout lady who's on the bottom row (I think he name is Kate, maybe?).
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Oct 14, 2014 00:37
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Alright, Silent Storm! My first game ended due to bugs instead of due to endings, so I'll be watching this with interest. Does the Skill Watchdog mod work with Sentinels as is, though?
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Oct 14, 2014 01:22
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The 9mm vs .38 thing is probably just translation. .38 caliber ammo is 9mm in size, so it's technically accurate. The distinction usually comes in to distinguish 9mm ammo (generally used in automatic/semi-automatic weapons) and .38 Special (primarily a revolver load), since the rounds have other differences besides just diameter of the bullet itself.
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Oct 14, 2014 01:54
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I love this game! Well, not enough to replay it, but still! The destruction model is marvelous. For one, I rarely ever invest in characters that have lock pick or demining, or whatever, and this is probably the only game that lets me get away with it. Locked door? Machinegun. Locked chest? Machinegun. Mines? Machinegun. I'm also a big fan of using grenades to blow holes in floors and use them to assault floors below my position. As for voice acting, well, "My goose is cooked..." is a classic and listening to the Lithuanian sniper (Tadas Skirpa?, Axis roster) was hilarious. He's like an alien infiltrator, trying to pass off as one us.
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Oct 14, 2014 03:05
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This is my favorite broken game, frankly it's just rife with issues, namely Big Battles take FOREVER. Every single enemy taking independant turns when there can be upwards of 2-3 dozen, on multiple sides. Advancement is broken, you don't increase skills at the right pace to keep up with both the passive increases for NPCs and what the story thinks you should have without gaming it. But it's still just a joy to play.
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Oct 14, 2014 03:25
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Tin Tim posted:And lastly, the officer also had something new for us. You can use the AmmoFixes mod to solve the mis-named items. (http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/ammofixes-s2-modification/) And you can use the AddMod tool to add mods retroactively to saved games. (http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/ammofixes-s2-modification/) e: the best pistols are yet to come.
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Oct 14, 2014 04:08
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Is there anywhere that gives a good breakdown of skills? I can't look at talent trees like that without wanting to know all about them. You said Master Sniper increases crit damage--would combining that crit damage boost with Always Critical be a good mix, even if the crit chance is obsolete, or is a regular critical always good enough? Also I'm not seeing any shotties, which are usually my bag. You'd think they'd be handy for going door to door in later missions if that's a thing.
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Oct 14, 2014 04:38
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Lotish posted:Is there anywhere that gives a good breakdown of skills? I can't look at talent trees like that without wanting to know all about them. No shotguns, unfortunately. But the mid-/late-game SMGs are pretty deadly at close quarters. Room clearing with a SMG and a bunch of heavy grenades can be pretty kickass.
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Oct 14, 2014 08:56
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I forgot how much of a lovable psycho Elf is. One of these days, I'm going to use her instead of Sook. Honest. Also it seems you're getting lucky with the clue RNG - it's entirely possible to have to go straight to Germany from the first mission. Then again, if this is the level I think it is it's going to be a pain in the rear end anyway. fake edit: Master Sniper is pointless once you get to better guns, because the enemies will quickly start coming in two cathegories: the ones you kill with one crit headshot and the ones your sniper won't be able to do squat about.
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Oct 14, 2014 09:52
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This game is just so charming I can hardly even see the faults most of the time. The encounter that made a convert out of me was some mission in the countryside where my squad was running around the streets, with a soldier and grenadier kind of trailing behind. Grenadier spots a nazi on the second floor of a house, and I figure 'maybe it'll work' and toss a grenade at them. The grenade blows away the entire back wall of the house, shreds the nazi, and dumps another two nazis that were inside on a different floor onto their asses because parts of the floor were missing after that too. Also, the only use I ever found for mines were as locks. Just take a mine, have a soldier or grenadier or anyone but an engineer rig it to a door, and voila. All the enemies will spot that instant trap and stay away from it, gauranteeing that you won't be flanked from that entry.
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Oct 14, 2014 10:45
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Whoa, lot's of things to reply toDavin Valkri posted:Does the Skill Watchdog mod work with Sentinels as is, though? Zaodai posted:The 9mm vs .38 thing is probably just translation. JcDent posted:I'm also a big fan of using grenades to blow holes in floors and use them to assault floors below my position. Pladdicus posted:Big Battles take FOREVER. Every single enemy taking independant turns when there can be upwards of 2-3 dozen, on multiple sides. Bacarruda posted:You can use the AmmoFixes mod to solve the mis-named items. (http://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/ammofixes-s2-modification/) Also on topic of pistols, there is a certain iconic one to come that I'll use forever. And then there is also the hilariously broken secret one. It'll be a while before I collect some secrets, but I'm going to use it for at least one mission because it's bonkers. Lotish posted:Is there anywhere that gives a good breakdown of skills? I can't look at talent trees like that without wanting to know all about them. As anilEhilated said, having Master and Always critical is pointless, because Always Critical will make you one-shot most enemies anyway. Also, while I can't recall the usual max level from the top of my head, I think that it's very unlikely to get enough points for both trees. Bacarruda posted:No shotguns, unfortunately. But the mid-/late-game SMGs are pretty deadly at close quarters. anilEhilated posted:Also it seems you're getting lucky with the clue RNG - it's entirely possible to have to go straight to Germany from the first mission. Then again, if this is the level I think it is it's going to be a pain in the rear end anyway. And the next mission will be sorta rough, but it entirely depends on how well the start goes  WendyO posted:Also, the only use I ever found for mines were as locks. Just take a mine, have a soldier or grenadier or anyone but an engineer rig it to a door, and voila. All the enemies will spot that instant trap and stay away from it, gauranteeing that you won't be flanked from that entry.
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Oct 14, 2014 18:30
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This game is great. I accidentally blew up a house I was trying to defend from the Germans and only my character lived. R.I.P. Zinaida, you truly became flat like beaver who could not judge wind when the second floor disappeared from beneath your feet.
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Oct 14, 2014 20:17
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I somehow never heard of this game or its series, and it seems pretty cool. I always have a hard time getting into WWII games like this where you have to micro-manage every unit and their inventory. How easy is it to get into this game? I'm already happy to see a game using the MP 40-2 and I can't wait to see what else it has in store
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Oct 15, 2014 02:18
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quote:That's actually interesting to know! I did a bit of research before making my statement, but I didn't know that .38Spc isn't that much different from 9mm. The names used for firearm cartridges are often based around what sounds better rather than direct references to their caliber. For instance, 9x19mm actually fires a .355 caliber bullet and .38 Special is .357 caliber; that's why .357 Magnum guns can chamber and fire .38 Special with no difficulty, as the magnum round does nothing but fill the case with more gunpowder and slightly stretch it out (which is actually unnecessary and only serves to keep the magnum rounds from being loaded into a weaker gun). I believe the .38 caliber designation is an heirloom from the old cap and ball revolver days; you load these revolvers with slightly oversized bullets that will be swaged down tightly into the cylinder and form a good seal in the chamber, so a .36 caliber revolver (one of the most common calibers in America) would receive a .38 caliber bullet. Likewise, a .44 caliber would get a .454 caliber bullet. It gets even more confusing if you use certain other measurements, like the 9x19mm round has a .380 inch case neck. And Europeans and Americans measure caliber differently (can't remember which is which, but one uses the grooves -- the deeper part of the rifling -- while the other uses the lands, giving slightly different measurements). Basically, the name of a round can really only give you the bare minimum of information about what it actually is. 9x19mm could have certainly ended up being called ".38 Parabellum" in an alternate universe if American marketers wanted to connect it both to the Luger (also called the Parabellum-Pistole, originally chambered in 7.65mm Parabellum) and the long history of .38 caliber handgun cartridges.
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Oct 15, 2014 15:02
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Jobbo_Fett posted:I somehow never heard of this game or its series, and it seems pretty cool. I always have a hard time getting into WWII games like this where you have to micro-manage every unit and their inventory. How easy is it to get into this game? It's not terrible in this one, since it's mostly turn based and you get a lot of downtime, but picking everything up can be a pain. The sequel fixes this though, and many other issues with this game. You also have a very small group of people, so it's more akin to Jagged Alliance's inventory management than Men of War.
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Oct 15, 2014 19:32
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The inventory management isn't bad at all, really. For a new player you'll likely be more confused by the weird, unintuitive, mistaken, buggy or flat out broken parts of the game. All the crazy stuff that Tin Tim has mentioned so far is absolutely true. I have played S2 for years and while I really enjoy it, I can admit that it is truly a bizarre game. If you're into obscure WW2 weaponry then just hold on. There are tons of weapons including odd variants like the MP40-2 and lots of weapons from countries other than the big three you see in normal WW2 games. I don't know how many of them will actually be shown or used during the LP since many of them are fairly worthless, but it's still a cool feature.
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Oct 15, 2014 21:08
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Unload My Head posted:The inventory management isn't bad at all, really. For a new player you'll likely be more confused by the weird, unintuitive, mistaken, buggy or flat out broken parts of the game. All the crazy stuff that Tin Tim has mentioned so far is absolutely true. I have played S2 for years and while I really enjoy it, I can admit that it is truly a bizarre game. Is it similar to Commandos? I've been meaning to get into more spergy WWII games to supplement my current catalog. And I love just about anything WWII related, just like how I'm really enjoying this LP. Keep the updates coming Tin Tim!
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Oct 15, 2014 21:42
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 02:02 |
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I should probably fire a warning shot here and say it's not your average garden variety World War 2 we're fighting here - and halt it there since it's getting into things that shall not be discussed.
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Oct 15, 2014 21:44
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